American Idol Judge Receives Mixed Reviews: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer January 14, 2009

The season premiere of American Idol was also the coming out party for new judge Kara DioGuardi. DioGuardi, a popular songwriter and producer whose worked with many Idol alums, received mixed reviews from fans and critics, who criticized her for being too smart and too musical.

AT&T sent text messages to wireless subscribers urging them to tune into the season premiere of Fox's American Idol. AT&T, who sponsors American Idol, claims the messages were simply friendly reminders, that "text messaging is the perfect way for us to tell people about this wildly successful show and to watch it." However, users, many of whom felt violated for receiving the unsolicited message, are branding it as spam.

Yahoo named Carol Bartz its new CEO. Bartz formerly served as the CEO of Autodesk and also sat on the board of Cisco with former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Yahoo President Sue Decker, who was in the running for the position, resigned after the announcement.

In another move to keep up with Netflix, Blockbuster has announced that they will offer electronic access to its video library. The service will allow users to rent and purchase video content on broadband connected devices, including PC's, mobile phones, Blu-ray players and web-connected televisions. Blockbuster will team with Sonic Solutions Inc., and its subsidiary CinemaNow, to roll out the new service.

Activision's Guitar Hero III hit $1 billion in sales. However, over all sales for both the Guitar Hero and MTV's Rock Band franchise fell 12% year over year. Industry analysts have noted that the genre may have "seen a peak in sales."

Plus, today's consulting question, "Is Julius Genachowski the right guy to lead the FCC?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at [e-mail]